Wounded
by booksforbreakfast
Summary: "I am wounded. I am strong." Tris Prior lost both parents to the terrible tragedy of 9/11. After moving to Colorado with the Pedrads, she becomes a history teacher. When her collage best friend, Tobias, is employed at her school, she offers to take him in. While discovering romance and facing their past, will they find their strength... in each other?
1. Chapter 1

**I changed the ages a little, Zeke and Four are three years older, and Caleb 1 and a half. **

**Tris POV**

I remember everything about that wretched day. I was thirteen, Caleb was fifteen, and our family was living in New York City. I loved it there, thrived even, but soon I would have to leave. My mom worked at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department in the North Twin Tower, and my dad was a fireman for the city of New York.

On that day, my mom was going to be home late, so she decided to take Caleb and me to work with her. We were both excited, and we both dressed our best. It was lucky that I wore flats.

After I had finished doing my hair, I walked out of my room and into the entry way of our apartment. I grabbed my black pea coat on over my burgundy shirt and black skirt, because the September chill was already starting to penetrate the air. My father had come back a few hours earlier from a night shift, so I quietly snuck in to his room, kissed his head, and said, "I love you dad." Little did I know that that would be my last "I love you" to him.

I walked back out to where Caleb and my mom were standing.

"Are you ready?" Caleb asked.

I looked up at him, since at the age of fourteen he was a considerable amount taller than me (already 5'11!), as I was 5'3, and answered, "Yup".

I took my mother's hand as we walked down the hall to the elevator. "Will you be missing much today at school?" She asked.

I shook my head. "Nope. In math we are just reviewing the Pythagorean Theorem, and I already know that. And we just finished learning about density in science, so it's just review."

"But you'll study when you get home right?" Mom asked as she pressed the down button outside the elevator.

"Fine." I said. Grades were a big thing in my family.

"Now guys," she said touching Caleb's arm, making him look up from his phone. "You'll be meeting my boss today, Marcus Eaton. I expect you to be on you best behavior."

"When am I not on my best behavior?" Caleb said. I snickered.

"Sure." My mom rolled her eyes as the elevator dinged.

We stepped into the elevator, and I pressed the L button. We shot down the 36 floors that it takes to get to the lobby, and we stepped out of the elevator. My family stepped through the lobby and out the front doors of our building. We walked out of the building and down a block to the subway. Even from here I could see the World Trade Center. We got on the subway, and it dropped us off two blocks from the North Tower. I looked at the time on my phone as we walked. 8:00. I didn't know that disaster would strike in a mere 45 minutes.

We rode the elevator up, and we went into mom's office. Caleb and I each sat down on the couch, as my mom left the office, and I take out the bag we brought of things to do. I took out my favorite book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I opened it to the bookmark at Chapter 5. Just as I start to read, our family friend who also works here, Hannah Pedrad, poked her head through the doorway.

"Hey guys!" She said.

"Hi Hannah," Caleb replied. "How are you?"

"I'm great, how about you?"

"Good, thanks."

"I'm just looking for some files your mom left me." She smiles and moves into the room.

"I think they are over on her filing cabinet." I said. She walked over there and grabbed a file off the cabinet.

"Have you had breakfast?" She asked. We answered no. "The best vending machine is three stories down. I'll take you."

"Thanks." I said. This would be the thing that saved us.

We walked out as my mom walked in. "We're going down to the vending machine. Love you."

"Love you too." She said. We walked to the elevator, and it took us down three floors. Just out of the elevator was the vending machine. Hannah took out her wallet, and then, we heard it. A huge explosion, seemingly floors above us. It took me a second to register what had happened, but Hannah jumped directly into action. She grabbed my wrist and we ran. Most of that was a blur, but I remember my legs burning, and many flights of stairs. We were surrounded by people, and screaming, and smoke. I remember yelling for my mom. Once we left the building, Hannah yelled for us to go, and to run back to her apartment. She turned back to the tower. I yelled, and cried, trying to go back to her, but Caleb held me back. We ran as fast as we could, and the smoke was so strong that I had to pull my shirt over my mouth to breathe.

When we got far enough away, Caleb clutched me to his chest. The South tower was burning. I sobbed into Caleb's test, and he cried into my hair.

"Mommy." I whispered. We wouldn't know until many hours later that both my parents died that day. Both saving people. Selfless until their final breath. We made it to Hannah's apartment, alone since her sons were at school and her husband was a pilot who was flying to Colorado that day. I will never, as much as I want to, forget that day.

A little girl grew up that day, too fast. She watched thousands of innocent people be slaughtered that day. She saw the buildings collapse that day, she and her brother, alone, stranded in this huge world, parentless, with a hopelessly poor sense of what to do next. The girl decided though, that she would live a life for those people. She was reborn from the ashes of her life, burning with a new fire. That girl was me.

Tris Prior.

**Well, I hoped you enjoyed. Read my other story Factions High School should be up soon. **

**Great. Now I'm all depressy. I was listening to the Divergent soundtrack while writing. Some words in there were from Warrior by Demi Lavato. It reminds me of Tris. Well, see you soon my ducklings. **

**PM or Review! ;)**


	2. Welcome Home

**I love the response to this story! :D I loooove it! Ha ta ta. Anyway, so Tris is 26, Tobias 28, Uriah 26, Zeke 28, and Caleb 27. Tris and Caleb were taken in by the Pedrad family when they moved to Colorado. She works at Pine Creek Middle School and teaches 8****th**** Grade American History. Tobias is newly employed as 8****th**** Grade Math teacher, his room close to Tris's. Uriah and Zeke live a half hour away, Caleb and Will live one and a half hours away. It's September 18****th****, 9/11 passed and Caleb came. Now that that's settled… enjoy. **

"Okay guys," I say to my class, pacing in front of them. "So, after the French and Indian War, the king was mad. Why?" Several hands go up. "Gabe?" I say, gesturing for him to go.

"He was mad because the colonists wouldn't move back east, and so he had to protect them against France, and that put the king in debt."

"Good!" I toss Gabe a Hershey Kiss. I like to reward my students. "So what the king did, was he taxed." I click my mouse so the slide changed. "His first tax was called the sugar act. So, he taxed the people who imported sugar. But the only people who bought sugar were the people in the…."

"New England colonies." The class responds in unison.

**TRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRIS**

When I finally pull in to my garage at 5:15 I let out a huge sigh. The day was long, I didn't get much sleep, and I had a few trouble students that really annoyed me. But after I clean the house a little, eat, and do some chores, then I'll watch some TV then go to sleep, hopefully earlier than eleven. I grab my bags out of the car, lock it, and head inside.

When I enter the mudroom I kick off my black heels and hang my coat on the hook by the door. I hear the scrabbling of nails on the linoleum floor of my kitchen. My black lab, Bear, comes sliding into the mud room.

"Hi Bear bear!" I kneel down, and grab his face in my hands. He tries to lick me, but I pull my face back.

I stand up, and brush off my knees. Bear follows me into the kitchen where I drop my keys and bags on the peninsula. My house isn't huge, with a small formal living room, small attached dining room, a small eat in kitchen (with good appliances though), a medium sized living room, and four bedrooms (including 1 master), and three bathrooms. But it's all mine, and I'm paying for it.

My bare feet are soundless on the hardwood floor of the foyer. I make a hairpin turn left, and head upstairs. There I make another left, into my bedroom. The space is big, with two windows along the left wall, my walk in closet on the far wall, and my bathroom to the right. My queen sized is next to the closet door, a few feet away. The opposite wall of my bed is my small flat screen TV, and next to that, my mirror and dresser.

I walk into the bedroom, unzip my dress, and let it fall to the floor. I wash my hands, put on a pair of sweatpants, a sports bra, and one of Tobias's big old Colorado sweatshirts. I have Uriah, Zeke, Will, Caleb, and Tobias over a lot (though it's harder for Tobias to come a lot, because he lives in California. The good news is he's moving in with me on Saturday because he got a teaching job here!), and most of the time they leave stuff at my house.

I pull my hair out of its bun, and leave it dangling around my shoulders. No need to keep pulling on my head. I also leave my make-up on. I'm too lazy to take it off now. I'll do it in the shower later.

Bear and I head downstairs, and I turn on the TV for some background noise as I dust. It doesn't take me long to do the whole house, only an hour, but what I'm surprised about is the sheer amount of _hair_. I own a cat, Frankie –who is mostly black with some white and is the softest thing you've ever touched- and of course Bear. How those two produce so much hair I have no idea.

I only have to vacuum now, so I decide to declare myself done with cleaning for the night. I'm such a procrastinator. Thursdays are my nights to get take-out, so I call the local Chinese place, Jasmine Gardens. I order my usual Chicken Lo-Mein, General Sao's Chicken, Wanton Soup, and Egg rolls. I feed Bear and Frankie, and then I sit down in the armchair in my living room to read until it comes.

The living room is possibly my favorite room in the house. It has big, sloping, ceilings, two skylights, and four windows, two framing the fireplace, and two framing my TV. The living room also has my big comfortable, beige couch (It was cheap, okay!), and two big blue armchairs. I sit in one of them, and start to read my book, Mockingjay.

Then the doorbell rings.

Who would it be at 6:30? The food isn't that fast. I walk to the door, Bear behind me, making sure my metal baseball bat is behind the coat rack where I keep it. I slowly open the door and see… Tobias.

"Tobias? Tobias!" He quirks his mouth into a crooked smile, and I give him a huge hug. He squeezes me back.

"Hey Tris!" His voice is muffled by my hair.

"I thought you were coming Saturday with everyone else!" I exclaim as I pull away. Bear circles around us, whining.

"I left early. My stuff is coming Saturday though. I brought a few suitcases today." He crouches down to Bear and pets him, saying, "Hi boy! Did you miss me?" Duh. We all did.

I rush him inside with his suitcases, and we take them too his new room. It has always been where he sleeps, but now it's _his_. After that we come downstairs, I get him a beer, and we sit at the kitchen table.

"It's so great you're here." I say for the umpteenth time. "I ordered Chinese."

"I know," Toby smiles. "Thursdays are your take-out nights."

We eat dinner, and then head upstairs to bed. We sit together on my bed, watching HGTV, and chatting. Finally, I put the TV on a sleep timer because I know I will drift off. He heads off to his room, and changes into pajama pants and a t-shirt. We slip under my covers, and the last thing I remember is Tobias turning off the lights.

**There it is folks. Hope you enjoyed. I'm gonna go watch some Dancing with the Stars now. Sadie Robertson is on! I might get a YouTube channel with my friend, I'll keep you posted (ha. Posted). Um, review, and FHS will hopefully be updated soon. Anyone like John Green? Tell me! **

**Luv ya! **


	3. It's Just Your Charisma

**Hey guys! I'm back! I posted a new chapter of Factions High School. I FINISHED READING THE BLOOD OF OLYMPUS! Whaaaaaaat?! If you have read it, comment in your reviews. No, they are not together. I loved the reviews! Also, this is kind of a filler chapter. **

I wake up at 5:30 the next morning with my alarm, well rested and ready for the day. I sneak quietly around Tobias who is asleep above the covers, and go into my closet. I grab a burgundy tunic like shirt, blue denim skinny jeans, and a dark blue scarf. I lay it out in my bathroom, and then take a quick shower.

I braid my hair into a side braid around the back, and then I apply some black eyeliner, black mascara, and silver eye shadow, and stick my Burt's Bee's chapstick in my pocket. I walk out of the bathroom and walk over to the dresser, where I grab some socks and put them on, and walk downstairs with Bear following me. I walk over to the kitchen, and get out my Cuisinart single smoothie maker thingy, and some frozen fruit. I get some mango, peach, and banana, and pop it in with some protein powder and milk. I also grab a cherry Chobani yogurt, and let Bear out. I sit down and eat my yogurt pretty fast. I sip my smoothie as I throw the container away and pack my lunch. I pack some extra Chinese from last night, a kiwi cut in half so I can eat it with a spoon, some homemade apple sauce that I made in huge quantities last weekend, a brownie, and some different snacks for throughout the day.

I zip up the bag, and set it by my stuff in the mudroom, and then head upstairs. Tobias is awake when I walk into my room.

"Morning," I say as I walk into the bathroom. "How did you sleep?" I put toothpaste on my toothbrush and start to brush my teeth.

"Good." Tobias leans against the door. "Hey, while I'm home today is there anything I can do?"

I spit and say, "You are a lifesaver." I finish brushing my teeth, and I rinse and grab some socks from my dresser. I put them on and look at the time. I have to leave soon, so I rush downstairs, where Tobias is already getting himself some breakfast.

"Okay," I say, grabbing my Uggs from the mudroom and slipping them on. "The vacuum is in the hall closet, if you could do that. And you know where the Costco is, downtown, the list is on the fridge, I'll leave my card here." I dig my card out of my black purse and set it on the counter. "I'll feed Bear and Frankie real quick, keep the door to the basement closed, Frankie can go in there, but Bear _will_ eat his food… um…. Oh! Please take Bear on a walk around the neighborhood, a run if you want. Thank you, you are awesome."

"Oh, its fine. And I'll feed Bear," says Tobias. "I know where his food is."

"Thanks!" I call, going down to the basement, scooping Frankie in my arms along the way. I scoop the food into his bowl, and set him down I give him a pat, and then go upstairs.

"Alright, I'm gonna head out," I pull on my black Northface. It gets cold here even in September. "See ya!"

I am halfway out the door before I hear Toby shout, "Bye! Bear, down!" I chuckle and walk to my car. I turn on the radio as I drive to school, listening to those stupid talk shows where couples fight out their problems on the radio. I pull into the staff parking lot and park my car, grab my bags, and walk to the door where I scan my card to get inside. I walk down the stairs and through the halls until I get to the 8 Red hallway. That is the team I am a teacher on. I walk into my room, turn on the lights, and set my bag down on my desk.

**TRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRISTRIS**

I let my students go for passing period, before they come back for homeroom (the last class of the day), when I get a nice surprise. Tobias peeks his head in while my classroom is empty.

"Hey!" I say, and walk over to embrace him. "What are you doing here?!"

He walks with me to my desk, where he sits in a chair across it. "I figured I would come and set up the classroom after school, and come see you." He pats the bag I didn't notice before.

"Aw thanks." I sit down and lean my head on my hand. "Did you bring me food?" Tobias chuckles.

"Yeah, I brought you a giant Twix from home."

"You're amazing!" I grab it. "Did you drive here?" I ask, noticing the room is filling with students. He shakes his head.

"I hitched a ride with Edward and Myra, this was on their way."

I nod. Edward, Myra, and their son Malachi are my neighbors. "They're sweet. I'm babysitting Malachi for the weekend, the weekend after next." I stand up, set the Twix on my desk, and walk in front of the class. They quiet down immediately.

"Okay kiddos, before we go to the team meeting, there is someone I want you guys to meet." I walk over to Tobias. "This is Tobias Eaton, your new math teacher. You are to call him Mister Eaton, and although he isn't your teacher today, you are going to treat him with respect. Understand?"

"Yes Mrs. Prior," the class choruses. The class erupts into chatter. I hear comments such as, "Thank god Mrs. Narwin's gone", and "Wow, he's hot". I must agree. Tobias gives a little smile at the latter comment.

He stands and whispers in my ear, "That's the truth." I roll my eyes and push his arm.

"Always a man of modesty."

"That's me!"

"Sit down." He does, and I say, "Alright guys, head to the small gym." In a minute we are alone.

"I think they like you," I say to Toby.

"I didn't even talk to them," He says as we follow the kids out of the room.

"It's just your charisma."

"Haha, I know."

An hour later, his classroom is decorated, and the students are gone. We head home, and Tobias kindly drives. "Oh, I found a funny picture of us from collage while I was unpacking. My stuff came today."

"Cool, show it to me." When I come inside I sit at the kitchen table, and he thunders upstairs. When Tobias comes back down, I jump up to see the picture. When I see it I gasp. It's a picture of Tobias and me in Uriah's house, against the wall being stupid.

"This is awesome!"

**So, it's been a while. The link to the picture is: pin/224265256418541533/. The link should work, just copy and paste. **

**Luv ya! **


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